


Running with the Wolves

by Brackster



Series: Wolfblood!Jemma [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Wolfblood (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Counterfactual, Jemma Simmons is a Wolfblood, POV Jemma Simmons, Season 1, Wolfblood AU, and how this impacts upon her life on the bus, but to tag that would spoil the surprise, i suck at summaries but hopefully these tags have told you everything you need to know, maybe some other characters may be wolfbloods too, prior knowledge of the Wolfblood universe is not needed, season 1 AU, well more or less, wolfblood!Simmons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-14
Updated: 2016-04-14
Packaged: 2018-06-02 06:38:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6555640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brackster/pseuds/Brackster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jemma Simmons is not a werewolf, she's a wolfblood. She's also a scientist with a burning curiosity about the world her species shares with humans. This curiosity has brought her into the heart of a top secret organisation, working alongside spies at the top of their game. She can use her skills, both scientific and wolfblood, to save countless lives but the very real risk of her own secret being revealed remains a constant threat.</p><p>Wolfblood!Jemma AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	Running with the Wolves

**Author's Note:**

> This piece itself has no direct Wolfblood crossovers, but was more something I wrote as a bit of fun for myself as a bit of a 'what if?', if you've read any of my other AoS pieces you might be spotting a theme here! Counterfactual AUs/'what if's are kinda my thing.
> 
> If anyone reading this is not familiar with Wolfblood and its spin on werewolves, the wolfblood wiki has everything you could ever need to know (probably), the most relevant page being here: http://wolfblood.wikia.com/wiki/Wolfbloods  
> Key points are that they transform into wolves at full moon and can also do so at will (tied in with emotions and adrenaline), they have increased strength, stamina and heightened senses of sight, heading and smell and all of these powers disappear at the new moon (dark moon/no moon days).
> 
> Also I've kind of gone a bit experimental with the writing style here. I'm not sure if I like it or not so if you have anything to say on the matter please speak up, getting comments is one of the nicest feelings in the online world :3

When she signed herself and Fitz up for the field she'd done so with hopes of freedom, finally away from the prying eyes and oppressive concrete of the academy, of full moons on every continent. She'd hoped to be running free around the world. What she didn't expect was to spend every full moon sneaking away to lock herself in the containment module, or worse a storage cupboard, hacking the CCTV so as to remain undetected. She didn't expect to enlarge her pack. They didn't know they were her pack, but that didn't change a thing.

Back home her pack had been small, just her family and their neighbours. Growing up in the suburbs of Sheffield she'd had a national park for a back garden, and the academy had been a shock. She'd been to cities before, made regular trips into town, but none of it had prepared her for the densely populated, sprawling concrete mass of the academy. The stress of it all, of being so far from nature, and the isolation of being a lone wolf made it a daily struggle to control her wolf for the first couple of weeks. Then she met Fitz. He was human but he was her pack; and he shared her distress at the mass of people, the lack of green spaces and apparent absence of peaceful quiet corners. Human or wolfblood, he was her pack. There were other wolfbloods at the academy, not many but a few – they were older than her, and much more accustomed to life amongst humans. 'Half wild cub' they'd called her. Whilst she knew she'd never be part of their pack they did let her run with them at the full moon which was nice, even if she suspected that was more so she didn’t wolf out in the wrong place. The company was nice regardless of the motives.

She'd come close to telling Fitz her secret many times, always hoping he'd work it out himself – one year she even dressed up as a werewolf for Halloween – but the longer she left it, the harder it became. It had been eight years now. She'd not lied to him, not really - she was an awful liar for someone with such a big secret, - but that was a technicality she doubted he'd pick up on. She couldn't face his pain so maybe she could never tell him.

Being in the field was both easier and harder than expected. As the resident biologist she could stall or shut down any line of enquiry which put her secret at risk and, though she was no Skye, she'd learnt how to hack security cameras before she'd gone to the academy. She'd made sure she failed her field assessment (Fitz needed no help) to ensure she stayed out of any situations where her wolf might show. That part of the plan hadn't exactly worked – she'd cowered inside a Peruvian temple under heavy gunfire as her new teammates fought off hostile rebels. Thankfully the reasonable assumption that she was afraid of getting shot was made, rather than that she was afraid of the adrenaline causing her to wolf out, or of her friends being injured when she knew she could help. She'd sat with her eyes shut, head bowed so her hair hid her face and her arms tightly folded. They thought she was hiding from reality, not taking precautions in case she needed to hide her wolf from them.

She'd feared dark moon days the most, of being needed by her team on the one day she struggled to find the energy to even walk to the lab. She'd been lucky so far, the dark moon coinciding with days when she wasn't needed urgently, when they were travelling or had downtime. There had been one exception, the day she had almost died from the chitauri virus, and even that had worked in her favour, her temporarily human DNA taking any complications out of her research. Living on a place full of spies brought its own risks, dark moon being the biggest. She knew Fitz had noticed long ago that one day each month she totally crashed – one time he'd shown up with an armful of chocolate; when she'd asked him what he was doing he'd turned bright red, dropped it all on the sofa, mumbled something about TV and women's issues before leaving so swiftly he could almost have left a cartoon puff of smoke. He’d never mentioned it again and she felt confident in the knowledge that he never would. It didn't make her comfortable, the thought of Fitz thinking about her menstrual cycle, but him assuming it was a symptom of her period was far better than him noticing how it always coincided with the moon. It was a deception she'd gone to extra lengths to maintain onboard the bus and to her relief it had worked.

She'd been tempted on more than one occasion to tell her team, stopped only by the voices which rang in her ears whenever she contemplated it – the need to maintain the secret. SHIELD was a dangerous place for a wolfblood, she'd be put on the index, reduced to a science specimen rather than a double phd scientist. She'd promised many people that she'd keep her secret, most importantly her parents. That's how, when unarmed and faced with a cybertech agent about to throw a grenade at Fitz and Skye, she found herself throwing herself at the man, hoping to take the force of the explosion with her own body instead of letting her wolf take care of him – not in front of Fitz and Skye. In hindsight her decision stung, if she didn't feel she could tell those two, she'd never be able to tell anyone. They were a pack, she'd tell herself each night. She knew the truth of it in her heart, but it didn't stop her from feeling the isolated of a lone wolf at times. The day that changed was simultaneously one of the best and worst of her time onboard the Bus.

Her best friend, one of her pack, lay dying, two bullet holes through her gut and she had no way – not human nor wolfblood – to save her. Instead they were chasing down some mystery drug she didn't even come close to understanding.

She'd smelt him before she saw him, her nose twitching as she took in the new scents boarding the place – one more or less human, one wolfblood. She'd approached cautiously, not wanting to draw the attention of her team nor to startle the new arrival who couldn't have realised he was entering the territory of another wolfblood until he was already onboard. His eyes had landed on her the moment she stepped into the room. She gave him a small smile and a nod to put him at ease, gestures which he'd returned, sending a warm glow through her chest at finally seeing another of her own kind; a warmth totally at odds with the cold, sickening worry for Skye which roiled in her stomach. They were left alone on the bus whilst the team searched for the drug, monitoring Skye, keeping her just the right side of alive. Alone with him she found herself able to let down guards she'd had up for so long she'd forgotten they were there, letting her eyes flash in her frustration at her helpless situation.

Once Skye was stable and on the mend they'd convinced Coulson she needed to go on a run for emergency med supplies and Trip was to go with her. Fitz had been fuming at this last bit, but he'd come round eventually. She'd forgotten how good it felt to run with a pack again – was Trip her pack? He had no other so yes she'd claim him as her own. When they'd come back in such high spirits, Fitz had most definitely got the wrong impression, though it would be pretty impressive if he'd got the right one. Garrett had made the same mistake, his parting jest to Coulson about Trip having 'eyes for that biotech gal of yours' causing her to stifle a giggle from where she worked in the lab the floor below.

Dedicating her time to trying to extract details of the miracle drug from Skye's blood eased the guilt she had carried for many years for not trying to investigate the source of her own accelerated healing which came with her wolfblood DNA. On more than one occasion she'd found herself torn between the risk of exposure and the potential to save lives. Now she had something better, if only she could find it.

Poor Fitz didn't understand why she was so pleased to be going to the Hub with Trip, not knowing it was because she'd be able to fire ideas off him much more freely, and perhaps they could even run some top secret off the record comparisons with the healing abilities in their blood. Plus, they were both due to still be at the Hub on the full moon and, regardless whether they were able to sneak out to the wilderness or whether they were able to sneak out to the wilderness or whether they'd be locked away, it would be nice to have company.

Things didn't go quite according to plan.

She fought to control the tingling when Weaver told her about Hydra. She stopped fighting when the video link cut off. When Trip locked the door she was in a crouch, black veins across her exposed skin, eyes glowing, fangs bared. He'd held up his hands, protested innocence. Then he'd changed. She did the same, facing him wolf to wolf, a growl in the back of her throat. He didn't growl back. Instead he flattened himself to the floor in a sign of submission, like he was declaring her his alpha... She'd had a lot to say about that when they'd transformed again and he'd dismissed her concerns, bringing her attentions back to the much more important reality of the collapse of Shield around their ears. She expected she had the choice between making it out alive and keeping her secret, fully expecting neither. She was very surprised when she got both. Part of her was glad Trip left the Hub with them, part of her was not. Full moon was days away – uncertain days surrounded not only by spies but by people she cared very deeply about whose lives had all been shattered by lies and betrayal, and Trip doubled the chances of getting caught.

When Coulson took them to the remote Canadian wilderness she was relieved. Her relief increased when Fitz's scans didn't show up any signs of bears. She didn't want to face bears in either form, wolf or human.

Sneaking off the base had been hard, but not as impossible as it might have been if the base's caretaker, Koenig, had not been a wolfblood. He may have been a wolfblood that disapproved their actions and encouraged them to go to the basement, but he was a wolfblood all the same. To escape the confines of the base, to escape the fear and uncertainty of the past few days and run and run and run through the trees and the snow had been bliss. She wished she could share her release with all of her teammates rather than just Trip. Especially Fitz. Especially when their world came crashing down around them _again_ upon the discovery that Ward was Hydra, that he'd taken Skye, and that May had left without a word. In the days that followed, especially as they sat round the pool at the motel all shaken but all alive, she'd almost told Fitz the truth, struggling to deal with the secret that sat between them. It had only been Trip's interruption that had stopped her, calling her back to reality and allowing the logical part of her brain to take control.

The one day she needed her wolf was the one day she was without it. The sun was bright on that day in Cuba, but the moon was dark. She'd been chased like prey through the Bus, her home, by someone she'd thought was a member of her pack. She couldn't defend herself. Without her wolf she was weak. Even with her wolf she knew it would have been tough. She couldn't defend herself and worse, she couldn't defend him.

She'd felt a bitter pang of familiarity as she was faced with the prospect of certain death for the second time in her life. Once again it was dark moon, and once again Fitz was right by her side. She felt strangely at peace with the thought that if she had to die, if they had to die together, she was glad they were both going to die as humans.

Then they found a way out.

Then he gave her the oxygen.

Then she swam to the surface, dragging him behind, knowing that she was taking too long and that a day earlier or later she could have swam the distance in half the time.

Nine minutes he'd been without oxygen. Nine minutes that would change both their lives. Nine minutes because she couldn't swim faster, because her deepest fear had come true and she'd let the dark moon get between her and saving someone she loved.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> If anyone would be interested in this becoming a series, I could be very easily be persuaded to tackle season 2 and 3 and see how Wolfblood!Jemma would deal with Hydra and Maveth and stuff. Give us a shout if that's something you'd like to read!
> 
> Also feel free to come talk to me on tumblr I've love to talk to you all @ladycrankyportcullis


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